Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXpreponderant element has to be recognized in the shapeof a regard for strength and vigor. This is not purely avisual character, but a tactile pressurecharacter translatedinto visual terms.To state the sexual ideal is not, however, by any meansto state the complete problem of human sexual selection.The ideal that is desired and sought is, in a large measure,not the outcome of experience; it is not even necessarilythe expression of the individual's temperament and idiosyncrasy.It may be largely the result of fortuitous circumstances,of slight chance attractions in childhood, of acceptedtraditions consecrated by romance. In the actualcontacts of life the individual may find that his sexualimpulse is stirred by sensory stimuli which are other thanthose of the ideal he had cherished and may even be thereverse of them.Beyond this also, we have reason for believing that factorsof a still more fundamentally biological character,to some extent deeper even than all these psychic elements,enter into the problem of sexual selection. Certainindividuals, apart altogether from the question of whetherthey are ideally or practicallythe most fit mates, displaya greater energy and achieve a greater success than othersin securing partners. These individuals possess a greaterconstitutional vigor, physical or mental, which conducesto their success in practical affairs generally, and probablyalso heightens their specifically philogamic activities.Thus, the problemof human sexual selection is inthe highest degree complicated. When we gather togethersuch scanty data of precise nature as are at present available,we realize that, while generally harmonizing withthe results which the evidence not of a quantitative naturewould lead us to accept, their precise significanceis notat present altogether clear. It would appear on the whole[80]